Jerome
Rodale, who founded The Rodale Press publishing house, was taping an
interview on the Dick Cavett Talk show. He was bragging about how he was
so healthy he'd live to be 100 when he slumped over, dead from a heart attack.
The show was never broadcast to the public because it'd be kinda funny.

Pope Johann
XII died at age 18 after being beaten to death by his lover's husband.

Jim Fixx,
who wrote "The Complete Book of Running" and lectured about how
running and a healthy diet would promote longevity, dropped dead from a
heart attack while running. An autopsy revealed he had 3 massively blocked
heart arteries.

In ancient
Japan, it was thought that somewhere on the tail of a cat there was a single
hair that would restore life to a dying person. Relatives would sometimes
bring a cat to the dying person, letting them pluck a hair to try their
luck. So they'd die anyway, but with a cat swatting their face with their
claws...

It's impossible
to kill yourself by holding your breath, so if a kid pulls that on you,
say, "That's nice, dear. Go right ahead.." (This is why my sister
doesn't like me to babyish for her.)

Cosmic Irony
- The person who wrote the famous song, "Keep the Home Fires Burning"
burnt to death when their home caught fire.

In 1970,
television newsmanChris Hubbock announced, "In keeping with
Channel 40's policy of always bringing you the latest in gore and guts in
living color, you're about to see another first - an attempted suicide".
Then she pulled out a gun and fatally shot herself in the head.

Eric II,
King of Denmark, died in 1104. He was known as Eric the Memorable.
No one remembers why

Nosophilia
refers to those who get sexually aroused by the knowledge that a partner
is terminally ill. They will even stake out support groups for those with
terminal illness like others flock to dating services, pretending to have
had a family member or friend that passed from the disease, which is why
they're there "trying to learn". . Oh, sothat's
why they're so attentive and understanding!

Napoleon
killed over a thousand people with a cough. In 1799 he was deciding whether
to release 1,200 Turkish prisoners of war when he coughed and said, "Ma
sacré toux!" (my darned cough) which sounded to officers like
"Massacrez tous!" (Kill them all!). So they did.

Paul Revere was
the fist person to ever identify a body by dental records. He recognized
the dead man because of work he had done joining two teeth together with
silver wire.

The most expensive funeral
so far was that of Alexander the Great. It'd cost about $600,000,000
in today's money. One of the reasons was the building of a road from Babylon
to Alexandria, big enough move a jewel studded hearse the size of a small
building which was pulled by 64 horses. .

The French playwright
Molière became sick and died while playing the role of a hypochondriac
in his play "The Imaginary Invalid"

Necrosadism is
sadistic acts on corpses for sexual arousal. Jeffrey Dahmer as well as most
serial killers do this

Mummies were so
plentiful when first discovered that they were ground up and sold as fertilizer
and put into medicines

The residents of death row in Texas are forbidden
to smoke. Guess they're afraid they'd get cancer and die. Perhaps some
can enlighten me as to why?

Mysophilia
is the practice of ingesting the body fluids of corpses, particularly urine.

A few months
before he got killed in a car accident, James Dean made a driver's
safety TV ad in which he said, "Drive safely; the life you save may
be mine".

Elvis
and Charles Schultz were the #1 and #2 money earning dead people
in 2002. Elvis made $31 million; Schultz made $9 million

Playwright
Tennessee Williams died after choking on the cap of a bottle of eyedrops
(one man wrote me to say he knew a woman who knew TW personally and that
it had been an aspirin bottle cap). He was a habitual pill-taker and drunk,
and in an impaired state he put the cap in his mouth, mistaking it for another
pill. It got stuck; The End.

Mark Twain, born
on a year Halley's Comet visited us, correctly predicted he would die the
next time it came by.

It is a myth that
the hair and nails grow after death; the skin shrinks, giving the illusion
of their growth

Seven breeds
of dog account for 98% of all fatal dog attacks. In order they are:
Pit Bull, German Shepherd, Chow, Malamute, Husky, Wolf Hybrids, and the
Akita. Mothers-in-Law ranked # 11.

Forest Lawn Cemetery
in Glendale, CA is the largest in the U.S. - 1200 acres in four parks.

Crematoria ovens
heat typically to 1,100-1,300 F and will burn up a 180 lb. man in about
an hour and a half. There's always bones and chunks left; everything is
then ground up and those are the 'ashes' you get back.

President Abraham
Lincoln was so distraught over his young son Willie dying, he had his
coffin exhumed twice so he could look at him again. And they say Mary was
the nutty one...

The Cunard
Line, which owns the Queen Elizabeth II, has a service by which
relatives can book passage for deceased if they want to be buried at sea.
Here in Chicago we just put them in a sack and throw them in the river.
Much cheaper :)

Star Trek
creator Gene Roddenberry is the first person to have their ashes
put aboard a rocket and "buried" in space.

The word 'mausoleum'
comes from the memorial tomb of Mausolus, ruler of Caria, who died in 353
B.C. When he died his wife had him cremated, mixed his ashes with water,
and drank him. Cheers!

The tradition of funeral
wreaths originated from the belief that the wreath would encircle the
spirit of the dead and keep it at bay.

The Mount of Olives
in Israel is the oldest, continually used cemetery in the world.

In 1355,
when King Pedro of Portugal was crowned, he dug up his mistress to
have her properly honored as queen. Loyal subjects bowed before the decorated
corpse and had to kiss her hand. That was nice of him - most women can't
even get their husbands to take them out to a simple dinner while they're
alive ...

By law,
all executed criminals in the U.S. have to have an autopsy to determine
cause of death. I guess "He was executed by lethal injection"
isn't good enough...

It's a myth
that more people commit suicide around "the holidays";
in fact it's quite the opposite.

A body
decomposes four times faster in water than on land.

Last words
of Thomas Grasso, executed in 1995: "I did not get my Spaghetti-O's,
I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this". Oh, quit whining and
have a seat.

If
you're planning on being cryogenically frozen, the ideal time to
start the procedure is within 10 minutes of death.

The first
recorded means of execution is stoning. It was usually a public participation
sport, and it was considered bad form to hit the victim in the head. The
preferred method was to keep the victim conscious and suffering for as long
as possible from internal injuries and broken bones. Think that's horrible?
They still do this in some countries. To women. Only.

Dr. Joseph
Guillotin did not invent the guillotine; he just persuaded officials
to use it as a means of executions because of it's speed and efficiency.
It is a myth that he died by the device.

Henry the VIII executed
some 72,000 subjects. His favorite method was boiling people to death .

When the Bozo Show's Mr. Ned died, they cremated him and put him
in bucket #6.
Hahahahahah!! I made that up! They didn't. Really. I just thought that was
damn clever of me.

The ashes
of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker were put aboard the 1999 Lunar Prospector
flight and was "control" crashed into a crater to give him a moon
burial.

Only four
U.S. States are on record as having never engaged in a lynching -
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

William
Kemmler was the first person to be executed in the electric chair in
1890, at Auburn Prison in New York. It was a disaster. The executioner had
to administer several rounds of juice while Kemmler kicked, seared, smoked,
thrashed and convulsed, finally dying after 8 minutes. An autopsy showed
he literally cooked to death, from the inside out.

Lethal
injection was first used in 1982. Three separate drugs are used, starting
with a barbiturate which knocks the victim out. I'm told by someone who
works in a Texas prison and who has witnessed this up close that the recipient
is not aware that they are "dying" in any way and that, physically
at least, it is a painless procedure. Which is a shame. (Yes, I'm one of
those people).

When John
F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it was not a federal felony to
kill a President of the United States.

Singer
Steve Goodman had his ashes buried under the home plate in Chicago's
Wrigley Field.

An
eternal flame lamp at the tomb of a Buddhist priest in Nara, Japan has been
tended to and kept burning for 1,127 years (2003)

Utah
and Ohio are the only states which still can execute by firing squad.

The name
of the pilot of the ill-fated TWA Flight 800 which exploded over
New York, was Ralph Kevorkian

The first
drive-in mortuary was opened in Atlanta in 1968 by Hirschel Thornton.
While the deceased rested behind a glass wall, those wanting to pay last
respects could drive by without having to get out of their cars. There's
"caring' for you, huh? Wonder if they'll have burgers to go, next...

From
the 1850s to the 1880s, the most common reason for death among cowboys
in the American West was being dragged by a horse while their foot was still
caught in the stirrups. Then I guess someone noticed this and said, "Hey!
We ought to be more careful!" So it stopped.

Tens
of millions of people died of smallpox but now there are only two
live samples of the virus left in the world. Both are in sealed test tubes;
one is in a lab in Moscow and the other is at the Center for Disease Control
in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The last reported case of smallpox in the world
was in 1978 in England, when the virus accidentally escaped from a lab.
Most smallpox photos you see showing "smallpox" these days are
some horrible black pustules that are the product of the archaic mercury
treatments that used to give - not the smallpox.

When Thomas
Edison died in 1931, his pal Henry Ford trapped the inventor's last
dying breath in a bottle.

A
taphophile is a person who is interested in the history and art of
cemeteries, funerals and gravestones

When
the first landing party went to Krakatoa after the 1883 eruption,
the only living thing they found on the entire island was one spider, who
was spinning a new web. I really like that spider.

King
Cambyses of Persia (525 BC) marched 50,000 troops into the desert to
attack Amun, on the Libyan border. A sandstorm of epic proportions boiled
up and buried them all.

The leading
cause of death to military personnel in peace time is drunk driving.

Murderers,
on average, are 7.5 years younger than their victims.

The Viet Nam Memorial has the names of 38 people engraved on it who
are listed as killed, but weren't.

Extreme
cold is more lethal to humans than extreme heat. Cold makes you sleepy,
and when you fall asleep, you die

Actor Bela Lagosi
was buried in his favorite Dracula cape.

Funeral directors
in Florida get 500 frequent flyer miles for every corpse they ship out
of Daytona Beach International Airport.

Japanese factory worker
Kenji Urada became the first known fatality 'caused by robot' in
July, 1981, in a car plant.

It would take more than
2.5 minutes to fall from the top of Mt. Everest. Then you'd go --->S
P L A T <---

It's a myth
that there's a "curse of King Tut's tomb" and 'most ' of
the people who were present at the opening of the tomb died swift, horrible
deaths. Of the 22 present at it's opening, 21 were alive 10 years later.

The death
of George V was timed so it'd make the morning papers

In the 'old days' men and women used a Laff Riot of deadly substances
for cosmetics, which would often lead to their insanity and death. Lead
was used for that pale white skin in the form of Lead white and Venetian
Ceruse, which was absorbed into the skin, into the tissues and blood and
caused acute lead poisoning. Mercury, in the form of mercury sublimate or
"Solman's Water" was used to remove warts and bleach freckles.
Ditto. Belladonna, a fatally toxic hallucinogen, was used to redden cheeks
and lips.

It's said
that most people who commit suicide 'arrange' it so the people/person
they want to 'punish' or give a final "See I told you so" find
the body

Armadillos
and humans are the only animals that get leprosy.

The most
common animal people on their death beds or in death hallucinations/visions
report seeing is a grey or black dog.

More men
than women commit suicide over love affairs gone wrong.

In the 20
years of the Great California Gold Rush (1849) about 300,000 died
from disease and 362 were killed by Indians.

When Anne
Boleyn was beheaded, so was her dog, Urian. Guess that showed her.

It's estimated
that in one hour, Genghis Khan's army killed 1,748,000 people. Each
of his men was ordered to kill as many people as they could until they dropped
from exhaustion, and bring the ears of the victims to the officers for proof.

Chocolate
is lethal to dogs. Doesn't take much.

Elephants
have been known to die of broken hearts if a mate dies. They refuse
to eat and will lay down, shedding tears until they starve to death. They
refuse all human help.

Union
General John Sedgewick was killed during the Battle of Spotsylvania
on May 9, 1864 while sitting on his horse and making the comment that the
confederate troops were so inept that they "couldn't hit an elephant
from this dis - - - " Those were his last words.

Direct
Dialing inspired by death - Almon Strowger was one of two undertakers
who worked in Kansas City in the 1800s. When a dear friend died, he thought
it was pretty strange he hadn't been called by the family to take care of
the funeral arrangements. It just so happened that the only telephone operator
in Kansas City, who received and directed all the city's phone calls, was
the other undertaker's wife. Hmmm.... Strowger didn't get mad, he got even.
He invented the world's first automatic telephone exchange system (and the
first dial phone) making it possible for people to dial numbers directly
and not have to use operators. Take that.